Riddick's Voice
by peptobismobile
Summary: Carolyn never expected him to affect her so intensely, and certainly not in that way.


The first thing that people noticed about Richard B. Riddick was not always the same. Most of the time, it was the distinctly predatory way he moved. Sometimes, it was his build, with the thickly corded muscle and firmly set jaw. And, on some rare occasions, if the goggles were off, it was his beautiful, lethal eyes, with their unearthly, ethereal silver shine.

For Carolyn Fry, however, it had been his voice.

It was a dark voice. At first, it seemed exactly like what you would expect from an escaped convict, with the calm flatness at the razor edge of a murderous tone, but there was more to it than that. That gravelly voice, with the constant threat underlying it, was always slightly condescending and extremely feral, but always…amused somehow. The mixture scared her shitless, but also fascinated her in a way she would never understand. Fry couldn't help but find herself attracted to him in some masochistic sense. When she had demanded he show her his eyes, he had lurched forward, straining against the chains that bound him to the wall. When she saw his eyes, hungry and shining, Carolyn had felt fleetingly that if it hadn't been for those chains, he might have ravished her right there on the floor.

What scared her was that somehow, despite the fact that this man was quite unabashedly a criminal…she wanted it. Maybe it was just because he had been locked up in that slam for so long that he would take any woman who was stupid enough to come close enough to him. But Carolyn didn't think that was the case.

It was worse on the ship when she was doing the sys-check. Yes, she had unwittingly enclosed the two of them into the small space, but it also had to do with the fact that he was free – unrestrained, alone with her – and perfectly capable of doing whatever he pleased. He had breathed, murmured dangerously against the back of her neck – daring words, bordering on threats, really – but she had shivered, her eyed half-lidded. There was something about his presence that brought out the strangest emotions and the most primal urges in her. And it was extremely hard to resist those primal urges. Carolyn thought that maybe she understood Riddick a little better than he thought she did. But she would never say that to him. He probably wouldn't believe her even if she had the chance.

Which she didn't.

In the end, though, despite the way his body and demeanor affected her, it was his voice that made her go back. Imam had gestured her forward, onto the craft, into the safety of the machinery that would take her far, far away from this awful wasteland of a planet; Imam's face, determined and pained, said so much. But when she heard that wordless cry, something in her broke, and she rushed into that black abyss with her bottle of worms, unthinking. Not knowing why. But somehow, the dark planet had changed her.

She was no longer the woman who would drop that cargo.

"Hold onto me," she had breathed in his ear, and for once there was no snarky comment, no sharp remark. For a moment, she was just one mortal being extending a hand, and he was just another mortal being, taking it.

"We're gonna get outta here," she whispered, but it was more for herself than for him; she heard the creatures slithering around in the peripheral, just waiting to feast upon the two of them. Sure, the creatures' vision was nonexistent, but Riddick was bleeding and she didn't think the mud coating the wound would confuse their sense of smell for very long. Paranoid, she glanced around, and in doing so lost the precarious hold she had on Riddick, who tumbled to the ground again, groaning quietly.

"Get up!" she had screamed at him suddenly. Her voice was panicked because she suddenly realized that there was a chance that the infamous Richard B. for badass Riddick was, in fact, fallible. And she didn't like the idea. Especially not when she was surrounded by carnivorous monstrosities that would kill her at the first opportunity in order to strip her of her flesh and blood.

"GET UP!"

Obediently, he used her as a support, and his body, so warm and solid against her own in the freezing rain, gave her some strange, momentary comfort.

"I said I'd die for them, not you. Come on."

As he struggled to regain his balance, his face pressed against her neck, just for a moment, as he hugged her to him. Then, suddenly, more as a harsh tug than any pain, she felt it: something firmly embedded in her side. At first, her body flooded with shock at the completeness of his betrayal, but then her eyes locked with Riddick's for a few seconds; his had shined silver in the queer blue half-light of the bioluminescent invertebrates in the liquor bottle. That was when she knew – it was not his shiv, but one of the creature's claws. And then she was moving. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew it was her who was being ripped away from him, but it felt like it was the other way around. His voice rang out sharply.

"Not for me!"

Out of all the alarming things that Riddick had ever said to her – the subtle threats, the shocking truths, the dangerous banter – it was those three simple words that struck her the most. Really, they were just her own words reflected back at her. But it stunned her to realize just how human he sounded, especially for someone so feral and predatory. What astounded her, though, and left her absolutely breathless, was the raw emotion in his voice; the pure, unadulterated anguish that echoed back to her on the wings of the unnatural night. And it was right then that one of the monstrous creatures pierced her from behind, just to the left of the spine, fourth lumbar down.

Right in the sweet spot.


End file.
